In Honor of This Day

The house is warmed by the small wood stove in the kitchen

New potatoes simmer in stock with leeks and carrots 

fresh from friends' gardens, the last offerings of the harvest

The day started with fresh snow in the yard

that quickly melted when the temperature rose just a little

Then dripped from one metal roof to the next with a steady rhythm

I can hear our tenant Evelyn's television through the living room wall that

separates us 

There is something comforting about knowing that an eighty five year old woman is there with a blanket on her lap and her black cat named Sassy at her feet

I bet she has a pot of something on her stove too

Molly shuffles in the room above me, curled up on the futon watching movies she's watched dozens of times, sometimes laughing out loud in her deep throaty laugh

She appears now and then to forage through the refrigerator for crunchy things and sips of something, often taking the time to make a cup of tea in the pot that no longer whistles

I like that she pours one for me too and never forgets the drip of honey that I like

Tim spent the morning stacking wood in the basement then putters about

scratching his head about what to do next, there's the sound of the bend of the tape measure

and the drawer with the tools and extra screws and nails slides open and shut

then the back door opened and closed as he heads to his shop for bigger tools

It's these days, marked by nothing special that I savor.

Unremarkable days that steady my heart long enough to fill it.

This Age

This Age

A few months ago I bought Molly and I an all night ride pass at the Tunbridge World's Fair. The fair is a highly anticipated local event filled with all kinds of folks meandering shoulder to shoulder through the fairway chock-a-block with classic slam dunk games and spinning wheels a buck a shot for over sized stuffed bears and dogs, tractor pulls and agricultural wonders.

Molly has been relentless in her efforts to make me feel guilty about never taking her to Disney World as a kid (despite the fact that I funded her high school band trip there where she displayed her trombone finesse simultaneously with her amazing marching skills for all the world to see). To add insult to her injury I called her from Disney when I chaperoned a field trip of high school seniors a few years ago from Providence to tell her what a great time I was having. Sometimes, not TRYING to be an ass, I'd call her from the poolside where, each morning, I swam laps at the Liki Tiki Resort (the actual name of the place where we were staying!)  I really did miss her because I knew how much fun we would have had together.

So on a night with intermittent chilly rain at the start of a Vermont fall as we moved through the crowd with arcade lights flashing, children squealing and tugging their parents one way or another, and the smells of Blooming Onions, grilled sausages, and manure held close in a fairground that we sloshed through in our rubber garden boots, ankle deep in mud, people sliding all around us, car tires spinning at the entrance and exits, we were simply enjoying the opportunity to be there together. The place was pulsating with anticipation, ours included.

We wandered through Agricultural Hall, excited to see the mother pig with her piglets, some snuggled together, some squashed beneath her. Lambs were settled in for the night in their stalls, gentle bleating sounds and sweet hay smells. We oohed and aahed over the vegetable sculptures made by local children, and leaned in close over the fence posts to see who the photographers were that won the blue ribbons.

Molly didn't seem to mind that I was the oldest person on the rides that night at the fair. To her, there was nothing awkward about being 23 years old and standing in line holding her mom's hand while we waited our turn for the rides. And I really do love the rush of the fast rides, even if we had to wait a half hour to get on them.

We watched each ride before we decided which ones would be best. The bumper cars were not an option, too many people in that line, but we climbed, without hesitation onto the spinning rides, locked in with steel harnesses, that pushed us together at every turn, despite holding on tight. I have this strange laughing reaction to fear. The laugh comes from way down deep inside me and pushes out in odd girlish sounds, squeals more like it. Molly's response was similar, but her laugh was deeper. By the time I got off each ride my face and belly muscles hurt. We both had tangled hair and wild eyes and were looking for the next ride. I admit I did need a little break after the one that spins and turns and pushed our backs against the wall before the floor drops out. I couldn't seem to open my eyes. But I loved the feel of the moving night air, the sound of the jingling piped in fair music that seemed to flow with the rise and fall of the ride and yes, Molly was still holding my hand at the end of it.

Becoming Art

First there’s color, then form.

I like being a passenger, pressing my face to the glass, craning my neck until it hurts and I lose the landscape that I pass through. It becomes an abstraction, no line defined between sky and earth.

Each blade of grass changes with reflected light and green is no longer green. Blue has a language of its own. Yellow tiptoes in.

I squint to find the reds which usually translate as crimson, accentuated with purple, that I am certain, in the moment, no one else can see. Of course there are flowers on that hillside but we are always moving so fast.

Water is baffling, the textures shift with every movement of the air. I want to say, “Stand still while I paint you!” But it is relentless in its determination to gnaw at the shore and shift the stones that shush against each other.

I open the shutter, drag the speed of the exposure, and close my eyes as if the click! will do anything other than capture the contours of a single moment when the light of the day hangs around long enough for me to thank it.

This Place

At Home

Funny to look around this big gray house and see these collections of things found and gathered over time. These things that are our lives.

Some, randomly placed, and others, in an order that changes each time the light comes through the window and whispers, “No, not there…”

 I am always trying to remember where things go.

Each time I walk into a room it’s as if I had never been there before.

I am surprised by what catches my eye; Red glass, orange throw, the contrast of what is soft and the surfaces that I can run my fingers along smoothly, or tattered rattan, wood

Already gathering dust

However fine.

The books that I can’t let go, the order, vague; Poetry, religion, all things real, biography, text books that my daughters and I hoped to return to, eventually. Every now and then a gingko leaf falls from the pages of a poetry book and I look for the page that it stained as if some clue is held there about where I came from or where I should go.

It’s all reference for times and places we moved through. The photographs are stacked with stories, the most important ones prominent, the others in a plastic bin in our attic, waiting for their chance to be a part of the conversation or to be just a collection of frames that I slide pictures in and out of, surprised by what was behind the most recent one. Sometimes they  serve to hold the new picture closer to the glass that is crusted with years of dust and fingerprints.

It pleases me to say that each thing in this house has a story. The moves have been so frequent that we could only hold on to what was important. It’s all important we agree as we continue to unpack the boxes that have been used so many times that their labels have nothing to do with their contents. The holes on each side are so soft that the edges of them curl inside my fingers.

Portland, ME: Another Pinpoint on the Map

By Sarah

Hellooo ladies! Anyone out there?? One of us must have failed to mention in our previous posts, how great the Caouette-DeLallo women are at beginning things, but how easily we allow them to take a back burner when we take on new interests or responsibilities.

Summer has already passed and I am no longer living on my mother's property in the Airstream camper I renovated into a guest house. It is now my mother's garden studio until the nights get too cold to paint out there, even with the warmth of a space heater. I've since traded that intimate, green shelter space, for 1,200 sq ft of hardwood floors and my own office.

I share the apartment with Molly, who moved up here with me in September from Providence. We both knew this would be the perfect place for the two of us, though we chose it for different reasons. Molly said, "I have a thing for bathrooms." And I said, "There is so much light." And while she inhabits the front end of the flat, and I the back, somewhere in-between our bobby pins and hair ties, our snacks and shoes, intermingle in only a way sisters can live.

Portland has been good to us thus far, particularly the food scene (we've become Little Lad's popcorn and craft beer addicts). Though I am already trading jobs to maintain a better writing schedule. Writing needs to be my primary focus right now. As I'm reminded regularly, my twenties are slipping away, and I can see my window of opportunity getting smaller and smaller as time passes. My hope is to finish the novel I began three years ago, here in this city. It would be befitting, since when I first started working on the manuscript, I had loosely based the setting on Portland (even though I had never lived here. Kate had, and I enjoyed coming to visit her and hanging out around town so much, I felt it the best place for my story to begin.)

I have moved four times this year. Some people don't even move four times in a lifetime. I want to believe I will be here, where I've landed, for a little longer than usual. But the reality is, the future is uncertain for me when it comes to such things. Molly is talking about going to Ecuador during her summer break. (Not sure if I want to get a temporary roommate or not.) And at some point I am going to try to get over to England to visit Kate and Michael this spring, but of course that is all dependent on money, and work, and school etc, etc.

Today I have put in almost a full day of writing. I am exhausted, and even though it feels like I didn't even make a dent in all the things I want/need to be working on, I know that I did accomplish something. Tomorrow I will begin again fresh, pen to page.

The Sports Bra Dilemma

Please know that before you continue to read this, there are some slightly crude words that may offend you. That being said I am going to explain to the meaning of a sports bra and what it feels to live in one 7 days a week.

Sports bra, noun.-a uni-boob inducing piece of stretchy fabric that is meant to worn during high impact sports and days when all of your other bras are in the wash. Also for women (and the odd male-gynecomastia or man boobies) who want to appear to be athletic.

I am no stranger to wearing sports bras. As a competitive athlete and all around tom-boy, I worship these wonderful elastic rack hammocks. I mean, can you honestly say that underwire bras digging into your back and leaving gross marks all around your chest is attractive, let alone comfortable? If you answered yes to this question then it proves that your bra band is way too tight and it is cutting off the circulation to brain making it impossible for you to have logical answers.

One of my most memorable make-out moments with a boys was one in which I sported the sports bra. I was wearing a tattered and worn out lacrosse pinnie and sweatpants. I really get dressing to impress. So anyway, he did what any horny, college guy would; his hands went a wandering. Most boys think that when they put there hands up a girl's shirt, they will find a clasp gasping to be unhooked. But not with this girl. No way. Instead he pulled it off my skin about an inch and let it snap back into place. He was so amused that he continued to do so. That went on for over 20 minutes. Some girls would have been humiliated, but it was my proudest moment yet.

During the summer and sometimes into the fall if I am feeling frisky, I'll wear a sports bra without a shirt over it. No, it is not to show off my massive, size 30B knockers (can a 30 be described as massive?) not is it to show off how nice and tan and 6 pack-a-licious my belly is. I go sans shirt because running 15 miles when it is over 80 degrees is not something you want to do with a shirt chaffing your armpits. And those farmer tans make me feel like a Hillbilly. I remember one day when I went out in a gray t-shirt. It is one of my favorites (it has 'Dartmouth Soccer' printed on the front), a nice heather gray. But came home with the back completely wet from the humid air combined with my sweat. The armpits were another story. So I vowed to go out the next day in just the sports bra.

In Rhode Island, there are a lot of funky people. There are a lot of wonderful people, but the funkiness is very apparent. Whenever I go out for my runs, I get a lot of honks. Men in trucks, men in jeeps, even the jewel upon jewels, a man in a mini-van. What a douche! I'm am trying to leave a small carbon footprint by using my legs instead of a car and I get mullet donning weenies shouting 'Oh, yeah!' at me while they listen to bad country or booming rap. It is incredible what men find sexy. Here is me, dripping with sweat, red-faced with dirt and exhaust sticking to my skin. To top off the hotness factor even more, I usually pull my track shorts up to my belly button. In Rhode Island, you can't wear a sports bra and shorts. That is just out of the question. It frustrates me to know that even in a t-shirt, men still honk at me like. Miss Jenna Jameson would probably salute me.

Most people carry guns today so if you are out jogging/running and a man honks at you, don't scream out 'Fuck off' and flip your middle finger. He might be an ex-con so you can never be to cautious with the reaction. Or, to guarantee that no one will honk, carry a trident with you (not the gum, the thing Poseidon used). That will definitely scare 'em off. But the cops might not be as amused so make sure to disguise as something friendly or polite (i.e. a muffin or a chihuahua). If you want to wear a sports bra, make sure you do it with caution.

By Molly
  

Removing the Labels

One of the things I really get about myself is that I have always understood that there is not one label with which I can identify. I am not one dimensional. I do not neatly fit into any category. I never have. When I was a kid I played basketball constantly. I woke up in the morning thinking about getting to the court and once there, tossed one ball after the next from the foul line towards the netless hoop. I got to be pretty good, so good that the boys from the neighborhood let me play on their teams. I got a bit of a reputation as a jock. I happened to be a decent artist as well. I sold my first drawing when I was thirteen to Dino Chernasky, a kid from down the street, who wanted me to make a copy of a Cat Stevens album cover for him. He paid me fifteen dollars. So I was considered an "artist" as well.

I loved going to church. No one had to prod me too hard to get out of bed each Sunday morning to get to Sunday school, followed by church, followed by Sunday social where the tall stainless urn was filled and refilled with pale brown liquid and the smell lingered on the church basement's folding walls. The best part was the church lady made cookies, usually Toll House or jam thumbprints laid out on white doilies. At one point I was attending church three days a week between after school Bible studies and Sunday school and Catechism classes. I was given the honor of presenting the sermon on the day of our class confirmation. I talked about the importance of women in the church and we sang hymns written only by women, so I got this feminist/religious reputation as well. My minister, the lovely soft spoken Reverend Jacob Longacre who baptised me, confirmed me, and performed my first wedding at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, really encouraged me to consider the ministry. I rejected this idea once I started partying in high school and lost my virginityand wondered what God would ever let me into his heaven after all of the sins I committed and the ones I had hoped to commit. I embraced drug experimentation, including L.S.D. which I took for the first time while wandering around the Boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey. I had this strangely permed hair that I never combed and wore embroidered gauze peasant tops sold at the same head shops where we bought bongs and rolling papers. Landlubber jeans with wide bell bottoms and Earth Shoes were all the rage. I doubt that I was considered stylish but I had little concern for what anyone thought of what I wore. So I was sort of a fashion rogue in my school, mix matching thrift store finds, gauzy shirts, and ponchos and vests my elderly great aunt crocheted for me.

Somewhere in a box is a ragged blue folder of poetry that I started writing when I was eleven or twelve. My love of writing got me an editorship on the school newspaper in both junior high and high school. I became the art editor of our art and literary magazine as well, and again when I was an undergrad in college.

My social groups were diverse and I felt as comfortable hanging around the housing projects with an ethnic mix as I did with the children of steel executives. I moved through the jock population and the artist/cerebral scene where we talked about Ginsburg poetry and Hermann Hesse novels, and got stoned on the weekends with my football player boyfriend. I went to church on Sundays with my great Aunt Mildred. I was a decent student.

Tim and I had an interesting discussion one day when he identified himself as a "hippie". I asked if he didn't find it limiting to label himself. People associate hippies with pot-smoking, free thinkers, who eat lots of vegetables, and in Vermont, typically drive Volvos or Saabs. As our conversation progressed I explained my rejection of labels because I want the opportunity to grow in ways that I might not even be aware are possible. If I identify with one group, doesn't that restrict my movement between groups? Can a hippie hang out on a basketball court? Or in a steak house? What about the cocktail lounge where my co-workers like to hang out on Fridays after school? They eat lots of fried stuff and drink pastel colored drinks while the rap/R&B music throbs from the speakers behind the bar. If I were a hippie, could I still go there?

Something I take great pride in where my daughters are concerned is how they have and continue to create who they are as individuals. They are open to the world. They are open to possibilities and they are fearless in their attempts. Over the years I sat in recital halls and gyms, ice rinks, stood at soccer fields, watched game after game of field hockey, had a ringside seat at indoor and outdoor tracks, gymnastic meets for all three, edited a manuscript and many papers, watched them cross stages, waiting with pride, my heart full, for the sound of their names. My head is full of memories of watching them become...I have purposefully chosen not to label them as any one thing. It's not Sarah the writer and Kate the actress or Molly the athlete. They surprise me all of the time. The gifts that they each possess will reveal themselves as they move through their lives and I look forward to what is to come. They too have each chosen to remove those nuisance labels that always get itchy and stick out way too far.